September’s Things

On Apologizing

We should all probably apologize for bothering Athena, the mother owl who lives at the Wildflower Center. Austin, Texas, April 2024.

September has felt largely like a giant blenderized smoothie of Work. It wasn’t a bad month, per se, but it was anything but balanced. There are months like this, almost always in the fall semester, when I am in work-world from the moment I wake up in the morning to the second I go to bed, frequently waking up in the middle of the night from a dream about work or with a thought of something I’ve forgotten to do or need to attend to.

There are too many things that need doing in not enough time. All of the advanced preparation that I did over the summer seems to have evaporated. Pacing in my classes is about half the speed that I anticipate, so I’m constantly behind. Every time I think I have something figured out, there’s another curve ball, another three meetings, another thing that changes that we were promised wouldn’t change.

Which means that my already virtually non-existent patience is limited and I’m making mistakes that I don’t normally make. I hate these phases. They seem like they should be avoidable, but I can’t figure out how to avoid them. And so, the number one thing I leaned on in September was apologizing. 

Apologizing has a bad, complicated, and gendered rap. You can find perspectives telling you to apologize less, to apologize more, and apologize better. A midwesterner to my core, I’ve worked to stop apologizing for things that aren’t my fault, have shifted my language from “I’m sorry for being late” to “thank you for your patience” (although I still feel - pretty deeply - like wasting someone else’s time is a totally valid thing to apologize for) and I gently point out when other people apologize for things that I don’t deem necessary (specifically for students who apologize for legitimate questions or not knowing things). Even after all that practice, I still generally land on the idea the apologizing is good practice in being truthful, kind, and making amends when you need to. 

I apologize to children all the time. Literally all the time. Many, many times per day.

If I say the wrong thing, I apologize. 

If I give unclear directions, I apologize. 

If I lose my temper, I apologize. 

If I go too fast, I apologize.

If I go back and rethink a frustrating interaction and realize that I was half the problem, I apologize. 

The kids always seem a little taken aback the first time this happens, like they don’t quite know what to say or do. I get the sense that kids don’t receive apologies very often, so they don’t have much practice in this scenario. This seems to stem either from adults tending to think that we are right and get to set the rules OR because we are so scared of losing our power by apologizing that we are defensive about our right-ness instead. Maybe we would all be better at offering and accepting apologies if there were simply more opportunities to do it. 

However, I don’t force students to apologize. Nothing chafed me more as a teenager than being told I had to apologize when I was absolutely certain that the person (usually adult) I was apologizing to was in the wrong. A forced apology made me resent whoever was making me do it, as well as whoever I was actually apologizing to. I also find that, when I talk to students, they often say something like, “I don’t care if he apologizes! I just want him to stop… [kicking my backpack, making fun of my friend, taking my Takis, etc. until infinity],” which illustrates why apologizing is not a substitute for action. None of those apologies that I make to my students mean anything if I don’t correct my words, give better directions, work on staying calm, slow down, or fix my problematic behavior over time.

I do find that my own practice of making frequent apologies for real but fairly small things (talking too fast, handing out the wrong copies, forgetting to follow up on something I said I would) is useful for dual purposes. It builds trust. It lets my students know that I care about them. It also shows them that I’m aware of the fact that my actions have consequences and that I’m willing to make changes to be more supportive where I can. On the flip side, frequent small apologies build my own observational power to notice when I’m doing something that’s out of alignment with my values, as well as my ability to do the hard thing of admitting wrongdoing. Additionally, because I’m used to saying when I’m wrong in little ways, when bigger things come up, I have scripts and methods readily available to stretch to larger apologies.

I had to apologize to my boss last week for writing a steam-of-consciousness email that came across…not the way I meant it. This is the kind of thing that happens when I have very little down time, not enough space to think first and act second. While I didn’t feel necessarily like I was “in trouble,” this instance was a good reminder that you’ve got to make space to stop, think, breathe, and then move forward. The effort it took to walk to her office and say, “I’m sorry for my tone. I can explain some more context if you’d like, but mostly I want you to know that I didn’t mean to speak to you that way and will be more careful and thoughtful in my communication in the future” is worth it to me to live within my values (courage, grace). It also, I hope, communicates that, while this instance wasn’t necessarily a huge deal, that I’m actively working on the things that made my tone come across the way it did. It communicates, I hope, that I won’t engage with an inappropriate tone in a situation that does really matter. I also hope that, for me, when I have to apologize for something that is a much bigger deal (hurt feelings, incomplete tasks that impact other people), I’ll have more of the skills and the reserves to do so.

I’m curious about your relationship to apology, your journey with it, and what you find yourself apologizing for on the regular. 

October is weirdly fuller than September external to work, so I’m only offering two classes this month. One of them is TONIGHT. Click on the image below to register. I hope to see you there!